Time to rest.

Limit losses, ride profits-regardless of all other rules.

This is the simplest, basic and the best rule you can follow. I'm always glad when I execute it efficiently. Do all you can to gain as much when you are right and to lose as little as possible when you are wrong-regardless of all other rules.

Today the market produced a positive price follow through from the breakout.

Trend following idea, not sexy but could be profitable. Today we had a buyable gap-up with defined fail-safe point at 15.67 or 16.10 whatever is better for your risk budget.

Above chart is showing an "all time high" idea from the shipping sector. Note, an idea is not the same as the plan, you need to know your risk point and your potential profit taking point and you need to risk enough to be meaningful to you if you profit but small enough that you can accept the loss if your edge doesn't work this time.

Remember: The market alternates between range expansion and range contraction. 

The information contained herein is for educational purposes only and is not, and should not be construed as an offer to hold, sell or an offer to buy any securities.

Up and down and all around.

Today we had a news that "Europe will be saved" and that helped bulls to take control again. Tomorrow is another day and anything can happen. We can break above Monday's high or we can go below today's low. More news from Europe, more earnings, GDP and jobless claims are all going to add the fuel to the move.
If you are bearish here remember that operation "Twist" or QE3 began on Oct. 4, 2011 and the market has gone up since with no or little pause. I'm going into tomorrow with neutral bias, and try to stay in the moment of opportunity flow, trading my patterns as they develop.

There is a way to play.....

Some of the S&P500 stocks to report earnings this week.

Tomorrow will probably be the biggest day of the week for earnings with Bank of America (BAC) and Goldman Sachs (GS) set to report in the morning and Apple (AAPL) and Intel (INTC) set to report after the close.  Morgan Stanley (MS) and United Technologies (UTX) will report Wednesday morning followed by eBay (EBAY) in the afternoon.  AT&T (T), Philip Morris (PM), Chipotle (CMG), Microsoft (MSFT) and Sandisk (SNDK) will report on Thursday, and General Electric (GE) and McDonald's (MCD) will wrap up the week on Friday.

Trading now.

I continue to position in agreement with the controlling price action, keeping risk in check, trading day by day, and I am prepared for just about anything.

"When you hit a wrong note it's the next note that makes it good or bad." - Miles Davis

Anything is possible.

Hmmm !

Contraction or a narrower range is usually followed by higher volatility move.

Next !

In a usual situation this kind of two day rally would be followed by a consolidation period, but we are in a very different juncture here and what typically works may not be all that helpful. Keep your mind objectively focused in the now moment opportunity flow and remember, price rules over everything else in trading.

Today we had a classic bear market type activity.

Now we need to watch price to find out if the turn around rally was mostly short covering or there is some new buying in it.